506. Baraset Barn, Alveston, Stratford Upon Avon And Dog Day At The Hotel Du Vin.

 

 The Baraset Barn at Alveston to the northeast of Stratford upon Avon was included in the Michelin Guide in its 2012 to 2016 editions. So why not now?

  The present Head Chef is Aaron Bodaly who has previously worked at the Kings Head in Napton On The Hill, a little east of Leamington Spa, from April 2019 to 2021 and then, after working for a recruitment agency, he worked from April 2024 to May 2025 at the Tite Inn, in the Oxfordshire village of Chadlington near Chipping Norton, where the television personality Jeremy Clarkson has his farm. Bodaly started to work at The Baraset Barn in April 2025. He therefore has a strong background in preparing pub food. 

  Passing a couple of days in Stratford to go to see ‘the play with the dog in it’ at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, I had been tempted to make a reservation at the Baraset Barn after an acquaintance had told me she had been served there the very best scallops she had ever eaten in her life. Well, there was a recommendation one just had to follow up on. Unfortunately there were no scallops on the present menu but I was up for it especially as the restaurant is dog-friendly.

  My dining companions and I were seated in the light, bright, comfortable bar area and Lucy the Pup Labrador was calmed by the kind, friendly and indulgent staff with little tidbits. The humans chose from a tempting menu and clearly we both had to start with the recommended scallops. We were not disappointed, they were indeed exquisitely cooked, unimpeachable. The  accompanying pea purée was very agreeable and the little cuts of pancetta were indeed the perfect match to scallops as of course they should be.

  We were both delighted with our mains. She enthused about her dish of roast rump of lamb served with peas, pistou, celeriac purée and goats cheese and I myself enjoyed equally my main, chosen from the list of ‘specials’, of king prawn and white crab (though I would have happily paid more to have been served more crab, a lovely lobster bisque risotto and very successful, pleasingly tender samphire. These had been excellent and interesting mains.

  Desserts were very good. I had lovely rice pudding with pineapple (shown above) and my companion chose salted caramel tart.

  Baraset Barn serves lovingly prepared food and I shall not hesitate to dine there again on one of my future visits to Stratford.

Rating:- 🌞

26 August 2025.

  And so, on to the Hotel du Vin in Stratford with the aim of seeing The Winters Tail at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. I saw it and thought it was excellent and the next morning chose scrambled egg on toast for my breakfast. Scrambled eggs can so often be ruined by overcooking but those served that morning were perfect -  buttery and mildly baveuse - exactly to my preference. Absolutely delightful.

  On arrival at the hotel, the day before, we received a wonderful welcome, it being International Dog Day, and the hotel had come up with the idea of greeting each dog staying there with a special doggy bag containing little pleasures for them. Lucy posed nicely for a publicity photograph, her coooperation assured by a chew dangled before her. Well done, dog friendly Hotel du Vin.

479. The New Tiger Bites Pig And French Onion Soup Returns In Stratford.

 

  Once more I was paying a visit to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford upon Avon accompanied by one of my regular lunching companions, this time to see Much Ado About Nothing, so beautifully presented in the fabulous and memorable 2014 production as Love’s Labours Won, starring Edward Bennett as Benedick and the sublime Michelle Terry as Beatrice, and sunk below the water line most recently in the deplorable production at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane where Tom Hiddleston looked permanently bemused and embarrassed in the presence of the wrecking ball that Jamie Lloyd had taken to the Bard (see Blog 468). But of this, more later.

  We started off our foray into Stratford via Snow Hill station with what we decided what be a ‘light lunch’ at the recently opened new home of Tiger Bites Pig. The restaurant is spread over the two floors of what used to be Church Street cafe where I remember dining at two or three Ben Tesh pop ups in 2016 prior to his opening of Folium in 2017. Some of his dishes really were quite experimental then but very interesting and served as an exciting introduction to his cuisine then. 

  On the ground floor of Tiger Bites Pig is a counter from which, I assume, takeaways are served, while upstairs is a good sized space for dining. The menu is no more complicated than it was previously and I chose an old favourite - the appealingly, but not unrestrained, spicy Sichuan style roasted lamb bao flavoured with chilli oil, sesame and cooled and refreshed with tangy but soothing strips of cucumber. The bun itself was soft and light and the dish of spicy prawn crackers we ordered had us slyly competing with each other to grab as many of the crackers as we could without appearing greedy. My lunch companion was very pleased with his white cut chicken bao which brought together chicken, sesame, pickled cabbage, green Sichuan peppercorn, spring onions and ‘Mandarin hot sauce. 

Rating;- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

  We thought that this lunch was just the ticket and things went well as we were in time to get to Snow Hill, hop on the Stratford- bound train, head for the Hotel Du Vin where we settled in before going for a pleasant stroll along the bank of the Avon on this warm, sunny spring afternoon and in doing so spot the first black swan to have been seen in Stratford for fifty years, or so we were told. On days like this England looks as grand a place on this Earth as exists, a blessed plot indeed.

All the luxury you need when you get a roll topped bath in your bedroom - Hotel du Vin, Stratford.

Stratford’s first black swan “in fifty years”.

 Things got even better when it emerged that the French onion soup was back on the menu in the bistro of the Hotel du Vin. A meal in itself; dizzyingly sweet, soft onion wallowing in a rather hot broth like a subterranean sea waiting to be uncovered from its location under a gooey, cheesy crouton lid. There are few pleasures more enjoyable than this. And then, an interesting and punchily sea-flavoured main of pâtes tagliolini noires au Crabe - nicely cooked squid ink blackened pasta with a strongly maritime hit of crab (though to be honest the crab did seem a little sparsely spread around the dish, at least to the naked eye) with more flavour from sun blushed cherry tomato and basil and a truly satisfying texture from good scattering of pine nuts. This was a very enjoyable dish though a little too generously portioned for me to be able to fully clear my plate and no room left for pudding.

  My dining companion paired a scallop dish with some very fine frites and was pleased with his meal.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛.

  And shortly we were off to the theatre, replete and content. The play was, as I recall mentioning above about as dire as you might expect it to be when it is set in a mid-2020s milieu populated by aggressive young men and badly but expensively dressed wags, all of whom speak with an Essex accent à la Reform. 

  The characters of Benedick and Beatrice are subordinated to the dark and vaguely incomprehensible tale of Hero and Claudio and the machinations of Don John with the aim of projecting the subject of  misogynism as the big liberal political theme the RSC wished to rail against on this occasion. It may not have been too much of a loss as the performance of Freema Agyeman as Beatrice was desperately unconvincing and Nick Blood’s underwhelming delivery of Benedick suggested that he should have been left on the benches for this production.

   I thought as the end of the play drew near that the director, with the elitist middle class snootiness of the artist that we witness endlessly in this era of the divided society, was probably directing an attack on the working classes wrapped up in socialist themes of equality and diversity and nothing more. In the past, there have been more gentle but equally patronising depictions of the working class by the middle class for the middle class as we hear everyday in the BBC’s  radio programme The Archers where very nice, gentle middle class village residents are honest and decent while the working class are salt of the earth but comedic and dishonest. But this RSC attack on the working class was much more savage than poking a bit of fun at Eddie Grundy. 

  This ill-judged production would have been better left unmade save that the audience around me found it to be hilarious. As, given the nature of the audience, you might have expected. But it had been the day when sweet French onion soup had returned to the Stratford Hotel du Vin and when a Black swan was swimming on the Avon - emphasising diversity I suppose - so on the whole things weren’t looking so bad.

401.Pretheatre Dinner At Hotel Du Vin.

 

    I was in Stratford upon Avon to see what degree of mauling the RSC was inflicting on the works of Shakespeare on this particular occasion - the victim being Love’s Labours Lost which the RSC had delivered to its audience so perfectly and memorably ten years before, setting it in a long lost Edwardian England - it’s now remembered as the Downton Abbey version - with the lines being delivered by mature actors who knew how to do it. This time, I had read that the production was to be set on a South Pacific island and the four lords were to be multi-billionaires attending a resort there. Ho hum.

  Clearly I was going to need some food prior to viewing the play. As I was again staying at the Hotel du Vin in Rother street and having previously enjoyed an excellent dinner there, it seemed most convenient and  pleasing to dine there again in its Bistro du Vin. The service was spot on on this occasion having had its ups and downs on my last visit. Wishing not to overindulge prior to an expected ordeal in the theatre I went straight to the main course. This was very well cooked, meaty, tasty hake, with a successfully crispy skin accompanied by a gorgeous velouté riven through with the delicious flavour of tarragon and crispy deep fried capers. The Parmentier potatoes looked a little anaemic but were enjoyable and well cooked all the same.

  I could not resist the opportunity to have tarte tatin for my dessert though I was a little anxious as the fruit used in the ‘tarte tartin of the day’ was billed as being pineapple. Tarte tatin, in my humble opinion, only really works with apple, and pear if you’re lucky. In the end this turned out to be a pineapple tart rather than a tarte tatin - the pastry was light and reasonably successful but the tarte had none of the unctious gooeyness and caramelisation that one would lust after in a triumphant tarte tatin. To make matters worse the chef had opted to place a rather naff demi-Maraschino cherry at the centre of the warm slices of pineapple adding to the impression that the restaurant was not offering sophisticated fare. On the other hand perhaps the tart might have been dreamed up to serve as a witty little joke by the chef though I doubt it.

  Needless to say my love’s labours for the tart were lost as they were for the play itself - this production being best described as ‘energetic’ and left at that.

397. Hotel Du Vin Bistro, Stratford-Upon-Avon.

 

    When in Stratford - and staying at the dog-friendly Hotel Du Vin - do as the French do. Just as, by extension, when staying in Paris where Molière was born - do as the English do - well perhaps that would not be entirely wise given the amount of shoulder shrugging which would result. Regardless, Lucy The Labrador and I were passing the weekend in Stratford to enable me to attend the Birthday lunch and stabling ourselves at the chic, if expensive (especially at this particular weekend) Hotel Du Vin.

  Sunday dinner was needed and I opted to dine in house. The dining room is modern and in the style of the rest of the hotel. The music is a little too loud and not quite in character with the Gallic nature of it all but the service is satisfactory though mildly muddled at times and the menu promising with some Gallic delights on offer.

  French onion soup is irresistible and I chose it as my starter. Underneath a happy melted cheese lid was a tasty soup with plenty of pleasing, tender slices of onion though I have had sweeter onions but nonetheless this was a pleasure to dive into (see illustration at the head of this piece).

  In addition to a menu with a generous but sensible amount of choice on it, there was a ‘Specials board’ which had some heavily priced items on it. But - like French onion soup - I can not resist a sole when it’s on offer and the noble fish can not be better served than when it is sole meurnière and so I plunged into ordering from the board.

  The sole was indeed a magnificent beast, and was prepared beautifully with a perfect texture and nicely seasoned. I should have liked a little more citrus but this was a fine dish, larger than many of the soles that have been offered unto me in recent times and so, I guess, the higher price was understandable. All accompaniments were extra but I opted for the very toothsome pomme purée with Camembert which was lovely.

  There’s a sound argument for sometimes eating meals in reverse. Desserts are for me very much an afterthought and I would often rather not have one if only because I am too full to enjoy them coming, as they do, as the meal’s curtain is winding down. Being served two desserts is the sort of thing, in my opinion, that happens to souls in purgatory and that is something which tasting menus often inflict on the innocent with or without their consent. 

  I always like to see what is being offered on the dessert menu and I always find the presence of tarte tatin to be a temptation but frequently reject that naughty French pleasure in the knowledge that it would overfill me. Such was the case this particular evening. Now, if dessert were served at the beginning of the meal, then the tarte tatin would have been winging its way to my table in next to no time.

  Regardless (shrugging of shoulders) - I signed off with two pleasingly sharp sorbets - lemon and blood orange and felt I had dined well.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

396. Politics, Film Noir And Shakespeare (Part 3).

 

  This year, 2024, Stratford-upon-Avon held its annual Shakespeare’s birthday celebrations on 20 April, three days prior to the actual anniversary. There was the usual parade through the town, see below, and more importantly, the annual birthday lunch held in a vast marquee in the RSC gardens where a smattering of theatrical levees may sometimes be spotted.

  This was my sixth Shakespeare’s birthday lunch (because of the pandemic no lunch was held in 2020 nor 2021) - the food is often unspectacular but edible enough but there is usually an exciting atmosphere as four to five hundred people who know lots about Shakespeare and the theatre gather together in their smart togs to have a generally good time. This year, everything was helped along by the fine, sunny spring weather and the presence of Dame Vanessa Redgrave who was to receive the annual Pragnell Award for her contribution to our appreciation of Shakespeare.

  The meal kicked off with a generous portion of burrata paired with a very toothsome heritage tomato and aubergine caponata with pickled shallots and decorated with seasonal flowers including those of the tasty wild garlic and an amusing coloured quill-shaped cracker, each diner at the table of eight receiving a cracker coloured differently from those of his neighbours. What a great opening act.

    How difficult it must be at such an event to arrive at a main course which will not be offensive to any of the diverse diners (allowing of course that vegans will be offended by anything given half a chance). This chef made the very sensible choice of roast Cotswold chicken and a fine job was made of it - pleasingly plump and nicely cooked chicken breast with an apt sauce laced with foraged herb oil and a reasonable pomme purée and three robust Wye Valley asparagus spears and tiny pickled mushrooms. A great dish for a large banquet. My compliments to the chef. Vegans, by the way, were regaled with a plate of delica pumpkin and pumpkin purée and more.

  Dessert took the form of a deconstructed pavlova with stone fruits and a lemon verbena custard. The meringue was presented in shards and, as with the first course quill, each diner at the table received a different coloured meringue and furthermore, very cleverly, each received their meringue in the same colour as that of their quill. What a triumph. 

  To close, three excellent local English cheeses were served with crackers and focaccia and grapes and a scintillating truffled honey which is probably the same stuff served to the gods of Olympus.

    It was just left for Vanessa Redgrave, all cracking voice and Shakespearean delivery to the core, to speak after the award was made to her and close with Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day ….. and everyone turned out into the late afternoon sunshine and ambled through Old Town with the rosemary twigs still jammed in their buttonholes or pinned to their eye catching dresses. A very English afternoon and none the worse for it. And … good food.

  Prior to the lunch, Lucy The Labrador and I attended the annual birthday parade from Bridge Street, along Church Street and Chapel Street, through Old Town to Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare and family members are buried. There was plenty to see - Mr Shakespeare with his quill, priests, town criers, the inevitable Morris Men, the MP, lots of local dignitaries all wearing chains and splendid gowns, men in military uniforms, musical bands, scholars, vast numbers of schoolchildren, lawyers and even ambassadors. 

  Only in England.